Tag Archives: Gary Van Sickle

The reader who asked those questions could have been speaking for me. Minerva Lake Golf Club, a 5,497-yard, par-69 Harold Pollock-designed track in Columbus, Ohio, broke into the Top 50 seven weeks ago, replacing Trump Doonbeg of County Clare, Ireland. I had never heard of Minerva Lake, much less played it, so I called Professor Charles Eppes at the California Institute of Science. “Yo, Eppes,” I said, “what’s the scoop on this Minerva track?”

Predictably, he rattled off a string of data points and then went off on a tangent about polynomials and “asymptote,” whatever that is. (Charlie is not a golfer, and, quite frankly, his Top 50 algorithm flies a foot or two over my head.) Winding up, he said, “You’re the golf guy. Go play it and find out for yourself.”

That made sense, so this morning I played hooky from the Memorial Tournament (at 58th-ranked Muirfield Village Golf Club, Dublin, Ohio) and played a quick and pleasurable 18 at Minerva Lakes. My playing companions were Wei Over Par columnist and blogger Stephanie Wei and Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle.

The par-3 18th at Minerva Lakes. (John Garrity)

I should say at the outset that I am a very demanding critic of golf grounds. In past columns I have found fault with Pine Valley (“Too sandy”), Furnace Creek (“Too hot”) and Ft. Meade City Mobile Home Park Golf Course (“Too awful for words”). But I found Minerva Lakes to be better than its surprisingly high rating. Arboreally blessed and criss-crossed with not-too-penal creeks, the property takes full advantage of ravines, ridges and other natural features. Van Sickle, America’s most-decorated course rater and a former Top-50 staffer, found just the right words when he described Minerva Lakes as “not the goat ranch I was expecting. It’s a classic course that will make you think of A.W. Tillinghast or C.B. MacDonald. Short, but fun from start to finish. Terrific par 3s, too.” Wei was equally impressed, stopping from time to time to Snapchat with her social-media followers.

So it pains me to report that Minerva Lake, which opened at 35 cents per round in 1931, will soon close for good, a victim of encroaching development. Three of the original holes were lopped off decades ago, and now the land is worth more as — well, as anything.

Never mind that a teenage Jack Nicklaus shot a course-record 65 in 1957.

And never mind that the property was once part of Minerva Park, a turn-of-a-different-century amusement park. “The 1897 casino could seat 2,500 people, drew some of the best-known acts of the day, and housed an orchestrion that cost a third as much as the building itself,” wrote Jeffrey J. Knowles in a 2005 history of the course. “There was also a zoo, dance hall, ball diamond, bowling lanes, bandstand, picnic areas, boat docks, museum, steam-driven carousel, wishing well and the Shoot the Chutes water ride.”

Sounds quaint — but no more quaint, apparently, than a 5,500-yard parkland course in an age of 350-yard drives and 75,000-square-foot clubhouses. “I almost wish I hadn’t played it,” I told professor Eppes in a follow-up call. “Yesterday, Minerva Lake meant nothing to me, but now I’m going to miss it.”

“Interesting,” he said. “I may have to adjust the algorithm.”

You, on the other hand, may have to adjust your travel plans to play this sweet little course before it closes. Green fees range from $13 (weekday senior) to $20 (holidays/weekends) with tee times taken seven days in advance. But pay heed to the terse message on the club’s web site: “Minerva Lake will be open through Monday, July 4 2016. After that date, the course will be closed permanently.”

So sad. Minerva Lake remains at No. 50 and will — by executive order — retain that position for the remainder of its existence.

A reader from Pine Valley, N.J., asks how much of a course’s rating is based upon conditioning. “You’ve got Augusta National at No. 6 and Prairie Dunes at No. 4,” she writes, “and those courses are immaculately groomed. But you’ve got a bunch of links courses on your list that are downright shaggy and have greens rolling at 5 on the stimpmeter. Can you explain?”

When mowed, The Country Club cracks the Top 5 (John Garrity)

I can. The Top 50 algorithm — perfected more than a decade ago by a CalSci team under the direction of applied mathematics professor Charles Edward Eppes — awards plus-or-minus points for dozens of pertinent variables, e.g., average green size, proximity of sand bunkers to overhanging tree limbs, horsepower of beverage carts, horsepower of beverage-cart girls, etc. But no points are awarded for conditioning.

That’s what makes the Top 50 great. Other ratings systems award top-100 status to glorified turf farms that spend hundreds of dollars per year on fertilizer, pesticides and sprinkler systems. These well-known courses subscribe to the Hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn theory of greenkeeping, which elevates agronomy above price, playability and scenery — or, as I call them, “The Big 3.”

Trouble is, conditioning is not only superficial; it’s temporary. Augusta National looked great in April, when it was on TV, but how does it look now, in August? Ditto for the Ft. Meade City Mobile Home Park Golf Course in Ft. Meade, Fla. Ft. Meade’s packed-clay greens are perfectly round in January, at the peak of the tourist season, but by June its greens — if that’s the word — have rough edges, and its fairways — if that’s the word — are covered with fire-ant hills. But those are merely cosmetic changes, and it would be unjust to demote either course because of its appearance.

Just for fun, though, I asked the CalSci team to crank out some ratings with turf quality added to the mix. Guess what? It totally scrambles the results.

The fastidious National, at No. 1, is no surprise. Neither is No. 2 Muirfield Village, where the turf is so carpet-like that Dan Jenkins, covering the 1977 Memorial Tournament, wrote that spectators “would sooner have dropped cigarettes on their babies’ tummies” than flick a butt onto the fairway.

Sunset Hills, at No. 3, is the shocker — but only if you’re a stranger to southeastern Wisconsin. Situated a few miles from No. 72 Whistling Straits Golf Club, Sunset Hills is a nine-hole par-3 course serving the heavily-traveled Highway 23 corridor connecting Sheboygan with Greater Fond du Lac/Oshkosh. Its designer, Ed Kirchenwitz, was superintendent at Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run before working his magic on the Sheboygan River flood plain.

Yes, magic. You know it’s magic the instant you step onto Sunset Hills’ first tee, which is as posh as a lawn bowls green and roughly the size of Delaware. The fairways and greens follow suit, punctuated by exotic trees, sensational shrubbery, and a meandering river. And that’s not even counting Sunset Hills’ spacious and densely-turfed practice range, which has the added merit of facing away from the titular sunset, rendering balls visible against the evening sky.

Sports Illustrated’sGary Van Sickle, who played Sunset Hills on Wednesday evening, said, “When you walk onto a par-3 course between the corn fields, you have low expectations. You aren’t expecting Whistling Straits-type turf.” Neither are you expecting a ten-dollar weekend green fee and a cart fee of five bucks per person — or, as I call them, “The Big 2.”

Anyway, that’s how the rankings look when you give points for checkerboard mowing patterns and topiary. Next time we’ll see how things shake out when I juice the algorithm with parking lot quality.

Top 50 on TV: The PGA Championship has returned to the above-mentioned Whistling Straits, a clifftop design by the legendary duo of Pete and Alice Dye. Renowned for its thousand-plus bunkers and slippery dune grasses, the Straits is scheduled to host the 2020 Ryder Cup “subject to sufficient guaranteed quality hotel rooms.” (Written from the Oshkosh Fairfield Inn & Suites, which provides free fresh-baked cookies on a daily basis.)

KANSAS CITY, MO. — Not much going on here at Top 50 headquarters. The leaves have turned russet and gold and have, in some cases, fallen. Folks are stockpiling their Halloween candy. I’ve noticed an odd trend towards blue outer garments, and there’s been a surge of absenteeism, but I haven’t been able to get an explanation from our staff futurists, who were last seen going out the door in their blue outer garments.

The second at Hillcrest: Where have all the blue-clad golfers gone? (John Garrity)

I’m reminded of the question that Top 50 employees get all the time: “Why are you in Kansas City?” My first impulse is to roll my eyes skyward and deliver that little mini-shrug that says “Duh.” We rank golf courses! And Kansas City, if you haven’t noticed, is pretty much Ground Zero for great golf. I live within a few hours drive of 4th-ranked Prairie Dunes of Hutchinson, Ks.; alternate-4th-ranked Sand Hills of Mullen, Neb.; 51st-ranked Southern Hills of Tulsa, Ok.; 57th-ranked Bellerive of St. Louis, Mo.; and 61st-ranked Flint Hills National of Andover, Ks..

That’s if I feel like driving. Here in the metro area we’ve got a Donald Ross masterpiece (30th-ranked Hillcrest), an A.W. Tillinghast charmer (51st-ranked Swope Memorial), another Fazio phantasm (43rd-ranked Hallbrook), a Tom Watson standout (71st-ranked The National), a Harry Robb classic (74th-ranked Milburn) and Watson’s home course (the venerable and 51st-ranked KCCC). Which invites the question: Where else would a golf non-profit want to sink its roots? Scotland? Ireland? The Monterey Peninsula?

Then there’s the matter of weather. In my book, Ancestral Links, I asserted that Western Ireland has the best weather in the world — immediately adding, “Not everyone will agree.”

Some will point to afternoon temperatures that rarely top 65 degrees Fahrenheit and damp cloudy days that succeed one another like wet clothes on a line. Others will grouse about the winter storms with their hurricane-force winds and rampaging tides. CBS golf commentator and author David Feherty — a Northern Irishman living in Texas — e-mailed me that I was “daft” for vacationing in Mayo “at this time of year” — i.e., summer.

But when I say that Western Ireland has the best weather, I mean golf weather. There are destinations that are sunnier (Hawaii), drier (Dubai), warmer (Arizona), cooler (Sweden) or less windy (Zimbabwe?), but those same destinations are often too soggy, too hot, too cold, or too perilous for golf. Tulsa, for example, suffers from both thunderstorms and ice storms, either of which makes Southern Hills unplayable. The Mullet, by way of contrast, rarely thrills to the peal of thunder. Carne’s fairways and greens remain firm and puddle-free in the heaviest of rains.

I’m not backing off that assessment; Ireland does have the best golf weather. But Kansas City has the kind of weather that corporate CEOs look for when they’re shafting one community to to extort tax breaks from another. There’s even a metric for it — a sliding scale of “decent golf weather” — that can be used to predict absenteeism, workplace inefficiency and unbridled unionism. Kansas City, which is either frozen solid or hotter than Hades for months on end, is extremely attractive to employers.

But really, it’s the intangibles that make my home town so special. There’s an ineffable aura about KC, once you escape the gloomy and claustrophobic confines of our outdated air terminals, that makes you want to come back again and again. Norman Rockwell captured it in a painting he called “The Kansas City Spirit.” Hallmark Cards founder Joyce Hall expressed it as “the good in men’s hearts that makes them put service above self and accomplish the impossible.” I call it “the Kansas City Way” and pay my earnings taxes with a smile.

Still, I wish somebody would tell me why everybody’s wearing blue.

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but we’re driving out to Hutchinson tomorrow for a look at 4th-ranked Prairie Dunes. Meanwhile, we’d like to recognize the playing achievements of our course-rating director, Gary Van Sickle, who came “very … close … to [winning]” the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship at Newport Beach, Calif.; his son, Mike Van Sickle, who was co-medalist at the first stage of Q-School in Nebraska City, Neb.; and Top 50 founder and CEO John Garrity, who, along with scramble partner Vince Schiavone, took top honors at the Humane Society of Kansas City Golf Classic, and, along with Atlantic States Ratings Coordinator Dave Henson, won his flight in the Palmetto Hall Plantation Member-Guest.

AUGUSTA, GA. — This week’s post may be too technical for some readers, but we are the most scientific course ranking, so there. And while it’s common knowledge that we employ advanced metrics, a Cal Sci algorithm and the mega-computing powers of the Bomar Brain, it’s less well known that we yoke our inputs to to various independent and proprietary data bases, not limiting ourselves to authorized sources. This week, for example, our Kansas City headquarters has a real-time link to the trove of Masters statistics generated by the Augusta National Golf Club.

The 16th green of Augusta National with the late, lamented Eisenhower Tree barely visible at far left. (John Garrity)

Some of this data is too arcane to be of much use — cumulative ATM fees! — but much of it is germane. A few weeks ago, our Catch Basin second-raters* were about to penalize Augusta National a tenth of a point for the ice-storm death of its so-called EisenhowerTree. “That tree was one of the game’s most-recognized icons,” said the guy in a white lab coat whose name I can never remember. “It dictated how the 17th was played. Imagine the Road Hole without the Road Hole Bunker, or the Valley of Sin without legalized prostitution.”

*”Second-raters” is not meant to be pejorative. Our field evaluators are called “first-raters” because they collect their data on course visits.

Fortunately, a cooler head prevailed. “Speed is important,” I told my basement staff, “but nobody of importance will play Augusta National between now and the Masters. Why don’t we just wait until the tournament starts and then adjust our ranking with the aid of fresh statistics — which is, after all, what we do.”

My words made a strong impression on the paid employees, particularly the ones with children and mortgages. Anyway, Augusta National began today, April 11, in sixth place, the same position it held when branches started breaking. I, meanwhile, have set up a command center in Row F of the Masters press building, right next to Gary Van Sickle, the Top 50’s v.p. and executive course rater.

Here’s the Masters stat we’re keeping our eyes on: scoring average by hole. Between 1942 and 2013, the 17th, “Nandina,” was the tournament’s tenth most difficult hole, yielding an average of 4.15 strokes per player per round. It played easiest (3.9485) in 1996, due to the premier of Howard Stern’s radio show in Texas, and most difficult (4.3480) in 1951, following the spying convictions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Last year, No. 17 was, predictably, the tenth most difficult hole at 4.22.

But now we’re watching as post-Eisenhower-Tree data streams in. As of 4:51 p.m. EDT, No. 17 ranks eleventh in difficulty with an average of 4.172 pppr. In language the layman will understand, this means that the 17th has dropped a full 1.0 in seasonally-adjusted difficulty, relative to the other 17 holes. Put another way, it means the hole is easier than before.

Easier is better than harder — ask any weekend golfer — so I have directed the Catch Basin staff to credit Augusta National with a “fun credit” of .05 points. This will not affect its current ranking, but we’ll be monitoring the National’s metrics all week and making adjustments as necessary.

Top 50 on TV: The Masters, as usual, is being played at sixth-ranked Augusta National Golf Club. It’s a little-known fact that when the first Masters was played, in 1934, the club was too poor to pay Horton Smith his victor’s prize. Instead, they offered him a friends-and-family discount on future rounds of golf, which he foolishly declined.

“There are many rumors circulating on the internet regarding your shoulder injury,” writes a Top 50 fan from Sequoia Heights, Fla. “The silliest so far blames frozen golf balls, but Drudge is peddling some conspiracy theory going back to your college-radical days at Stanford. I’m guessing you’re keeping mum on purpose, to drum up more publicity. Am I right?”

Top 50 Founder and CEO John Garrity (right) at Madrid Central Station before his injury. (Photo by Edoardo Molinari)

Van — may I call you Van? — you couldn’t be more right. When I saw how much attention Tiger Woods gets for his career-threatening injuries, I decided to milk my recently-torn labrum for all it’s worth. Here’s how it works: Whenever a fellow journalist asks me why my right arm is dangling like an adventitious prop root, I smile enigmatically and walk away. This has gotten me front-page coverage in more than a hundred newspapers and three different citations on Bill Maher’s HBO program.

Frankly, it’s too easy — which is why I’m calling an end to it right now. Here’s the complete story, as revealed in my exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle:

Q: Do you, in fact, have an injured shoulder?

A: Yes.

Q: Which shoulder?

A: I … [unintelligible] … agreement that we wouldn’t talk about that. You [redacted] only when ….

Q: How did you hurt it?

A: Actually, that’s kind of a funny story. In February, we had a brief thaw in Kansas City, so I went out to play a few holes at [42nd-ranked] Hillcrest. It was a breezy day, temperature in the fifties, the sun popped out now and again. However — and this makes me laugh ‘til my arm hurts — I didn’t consider the fact that my bag, and the golf balls in it, had been stored in an unheated garage at Catch Basin.But I noticed that none of my shots were flying more than a few feet off the ground — even the wedges! Naturally, I tried to hit them harder, but I got the same results. It wasn’t until I plopped three balls onto the iced-over pond on No. 14 that it hit me: I was playing with frozen golf balls! Hilarious, right? The next morning, of course, I woke up to the sensation of my shoulder caught in a bear trap.

A: I’m working with a trainer/therapist at my local 24 Hour Fitness. Most of the exercises involve gentle stretching to the sound of snapping ligaments and ripping muscle fibers.

Q: Is this your first shoulder injury?

A: No. Ten or fifteen years ago I shredded my left rotator cuff in a putting accident.

Q: A what?

A: I was playing [51st-ranked] Haig Point with some SI colleagues. What happened was, my cart was parked just off the green, so I was pulling my putter out of the bag while starting to walk toward my ball. Unfortunately, the putter grip got caught between some other shafts and didn’t clear the top of the bag. I called attention to it by screaming and falling to the ground.

Q: Did you finish the hole?

A: I think I’ve said enough on this subject.

Q: What impact will your injury have on Top 50 operations? Will course rating continue?

A: Of course not. You and the rest of the staff are furloughed until further notice.

Q: Well, [redacted] you. [unintelligible] …

A: My pleasure, Gary.

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but the Arnold Palmer Invitational Starring Adam Scott is being played at 51st-ranked Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Bay Hill, Fla. Tiger Woods withdrew early in the week, sidelined by persistent back pain, and former Masters champ Bubba Watson withdrew after a first-round 83, citing allergies.

To our readers: Immediately upon hearing that Gary Van Sickle had taken a coveted first prize in the Golf Writers Association of America’s annual writing contest, our founder and CEO stormed out of Catch Basin, leaving this note on his office door: “Mr. Hot-Shot Golf Writer can handle the posts until further notice.” Here, then, is a recent course evaluation from the Top 50’s popular executive vice-president and chief course rater:

FLGC’s scorecard was worth .045 Top-50 points. (Gary Van Sickle)

Mesa, Ariz.—You can tell a great golf course by its scorecard. Fiftieth-ranked Fiesta Lakes Golf Club’s card is on pale blue, non-glossy, sturdy paper with black ink. It’s a 3-by-4 card, probably because 3-by-5 would be a cliché.

All nine holes are listed with yardage and par, totaling a massive 1,533 yards and par 29. There are lined blanks for four players’ scores, in case you have any friends (though I kind of doubt it). There, beneath the last line, is what makes FLGC (as insiders at the adjacent Mesa Hilton know it) a must-stop. Three helpful tips: Tee off between markers. Let faster players pass. Replace divots.

Thanks to the card’s message, I avoided the common first-tee mistake of teeing off outside the markers, in front of the markers or, even worse, diagonal to the markers. Also, I walked up to the tee past a lone gazebo—the course’s signature hole, except for the fact that it’s just a gazebo, not a hole. I was a single, having just signed in at the fabulous clubhouse… trailer… shack. A gentleman and his young son were lollygagging on the first tee, looking like total beginners. Maybe they weren’t, though, or maybe they read the scorecard because they invited me to play through on the opening tee ball.

I’m pretty sure they were impressed when I teed off between the markers, depositing a 9-iron shot just off the right fringe on a monstrous 130-yard hole that was mostly wide open. It could be that getting the ball airborne was what impressed them because as I watched them from the second tee, after two-putting for an easy par, airborne shots weren’t really their strong suits. But I was glad they were there. This is what golf is all about, bringing your kid to a course and introducing him or her to the game. No better place for that than an easy par-3 track.

The second hole cleverly went back by the first tee, but a devilish pin position on the kitchen-table-sized green cost me a bogey. The third hole, also in keeping with the ingenious back-and-forth routing, was the strongest thus far, 168 yards, kind of downhill and guarded by some trees on the right. Fiesta Lakes is all grass and trees, a nice shady respite from the typical Phoenix-area desert golf. I holed a nice par-saving eight-foot putt while a waiting threesome watched from the fourth tee.

Probably impressed by my repeated airborne shots, they, too, waved me through. It was three college-aged players, two guys and a girl. Those scorecard instructions really work! Four holes on a par 3 course, and I’ve already played through two groups. Veteran golfers at real clubs aren’t this agreeable. I bumped a 4-iron down the right side of the fairway, since this was a 274-yard par 4, dogleg right, and without a rangefinder a large pond beyond the fairway’s bend looked like it might be in play. A wedge and two putts and I was off to the fifth.

The blue card said 155, but it didn’t appear that long, and apparently wasn’t because my choked-down 8-iron flew the green, hit some firm ground and bounded up onto the next tee box beneath some towering trees. A stupid-lucky bump-and-run chip led to an undeserved par.

The fourth through seventh holes play counterclockwise around the lake. The eighth, like the arm on the letter G played back toward it and is the most dangerous on the course for those of us who play the game from the air. I’m sure that fifth hole, with its forced carry over the lake, claims a lot of victims. A tee shot just right of the green looked usable. Upon arrival, no ball. The ground was firm and (a first time Fiesta Lakester learned) the water sneaked in around the green’s right side. My ball wasn’t on the fringe, it was under water. Well, at least I’d had the good sense to tee off between the markers. So call me crazy. That was a bogey.

The eighth hole was a secretive little bitch, but the ninth, ah, now here was a signature hole (unlike the gazebo) that actually came with a hole included. The card said it was 255 yards, par 4. Drivable? Yes, especially if you’ve got the red-ass after hitting the fringe and finding the lake on the previous hole. The problem was, it was a dogleg right, toward the clubhouse, and several huge trees on the dogleg corner blocked the angle of attack.

Well, I wasn’t going to let a little thing like common sense keep me from my only chance to hit driver at Fiesta Lakes. I had to tee up near the left tee marker (still between them, being the rules-stickler that I am) and stand off to the side of the tee box, lower than the ball, to have a go. This is not conducive to hitting the fade I need. Neither is my swing. I see draws and hit draws. My fade usually turns out to be a straight ball, if I’m lucky. No matter the odds, though, I wait for another threesome I’ve caught to clear the green, which I can barely make out behind the trees. I’ve got the ball teed up as high as I dare and I make sure to feel like I’m swinging up at it and—whack. The ball barely clears the big trees and looks to be on a pretty good line. That’s all I can see. I hit another one, just for practice and to increase the value I got for my $14 greens fee. This one fades (that’s the polite word for it) and sails over the eighth tee, across the seventh fairway and ends up near the fence that guards the FLGC practice range (and I use that term loosely).

My first ball is 12 feet from the hole. I play the second one, too, because it’s dead, blocked by some smaller trees. I chip a 7-iron low and hard, it bounces left and finds a gap in the trees, runs up the bank and onto the green… to a foot. It’s a ludicrous birdie. The eagle putt breaks sharply at the cup and lips out. It’s a well-earned birdie.

As I head to the parking lot, one of the guys from the group ahead asks, “Did you drive that last green?” I confess that I did. “From the tee?” he wonders. Right between the markers, I said. “Well, I couldn’t believe how soft it landed,” he said. “We didn’t know where it came from.”

I told him I was glad to have a witness for my shot of the day. But where did it come from? From between the markers, man. It says so right on the scorecard. [GVS]

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but our founder and CEO was spotted on the short-game practice green at the spanking-new Sewailo Golf Club in Tucson, Ariz. He was later seen, with his wife, in the magnificent PY Steakhouse at the adjoining Casino Del Sol Resort. Sewailo, if you missed our earlier accounts, was co-designed by four-time tour-winner Notah Begay and is the new home course for the University of Arizona Wildcats. Garrity’s original review describes it as “17 picturesque, challenging, and surprisingly-water-featured desert holes, along with one over-the-top, freaky-hard par 5 (the tenth), where you can make a desert snowman in less time than it takes a roadrunner to race to the airport.” (The tenth, we’re told by Van Sickle, is where our Founder and CEO scored a hard-earned 8.)

“What’s your favorite form of holiday precipitation?” asks a reader from Carthage, Mo.

Weather slows, but never stops, the essential work at Catch Basin. (John Garrity)

Unsure how to reply, I sent the question to the basement data center at Catch Basin, our Kansas City headquarters. Within the hour, the following ranking appeared on my first-generation (camera-less) iPad:

*As a writer, I do my best work when there are no distractions, and the sound of car tires crunching through curbside slush certainly counts as a distraction. My avocation as a cocktail pianist also suffers from storms, particularly when hail starts clanging off the music-room skylights during one of my nine-hour practice sessions.

To be sure, the silent forms become an annoyance when vehicles start sliding off the frontage road and piling up at the bottom of the berm. But I own a fleet of radio-dispatched tow trucks, so even the “worst” weather has its compensations. (As I write this, a matte-finish glaze is silently accumulating on the surrounding pavements. For a few hours, at least, we needn’t worry about Jehovah’s Witnesses or band-candy grifters.)

Precipitation in any form is currently welcome, as I recently spent eight days in the Arizona desert — an ordeal that left me with cracked and bleeding lips and mismatched hands, one deeply tanned, the other jarringly pale. I will report on this five-course cactus banquet in my next post, which I have scheduled for Christmas Eve (for maximum impact).

TMGC runner-up Chuck Garbedian chronicles his own greatness on The Gallery’s 51st-ranked North Course, a John Fought/Tom Lehman design. (John Garrity)

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but Chuck Garbedian, the Top 50’s morning-radio coordinator and Wisconsin station chief, scored an impressive second-place at the Tucson Media Golf Classic. Two-time TMC champ and TMC Hall of Famer Gary Van Sickle failed to place this year, but Sports Illustrated’s senior writer got high marks for his on-stage interview with former PGA Tour star and Golf Channel analyst Notah Begay, who was in Tucson for the grand opening of his Sewailo Golf Club, co-designed with Ty Butler. The new track, a desert-golf anomaly with wide fairways and a plethora of water features, debuts at No. 51.

The 17th hole at the new Sewailo Golf Club at Tucson’s Casino Del Sol Resort. (John Garrity)